Clarence Gooden
On the pricing side?
Jason Seidl
Yes.
Clarence Gooden
I think we’re getting it across all segments of our marketplace. If you look, barges are tight right now, so we’re able to get pricing in those areas and our bulk commodities. We’re able to get pricing particularly in the truck side of the business is coming up, so pricing right now is very much in favor of the carriers.
Jason Seidl
Okay, gentlemen, thank you for your time as always.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question is from Matt Troy with Nomura.
Clarence Gooden
Good morning, Matt.
Matt Troy, Nomura
Good morning guys. Question, a lot of people out there talking about the decline in fuel prices, lowering the absolute per mile cost per trucking. Obviously intermodal rates are going to go down as well as the surcharges decline there but just curious academically or in practice are you hearing from any of your customers about a desire to switch from intermodal back to trucking? Some folks are speculating that. I would think not. You just can’t switch a whole bunch of business into an industry that doesn’t have capacity but given that prices have come in, I figured I’d ask the question. Do you see it as a risk to intermodal in 2015?
Clarence Gooden
We absolutely do not. The big issue that has been in trucking remains the big issue in trucking and that is driver availability. Most people that I’m aware of don’t want their sons to grow up to be truck drivers and so truck drivers become an issue. People don’t want to be away from home five, six, seven days. There’s issues in passing the drug test to get a commercial CDL. There are barriers to entry now in becoming a truck driver and getting new Class 8 trucks purchased and the cost of getting into the business is much higher. So it’s more than just having the capacity itself, it’s all the issues that surround it. So we see intermodal in fact growing. Our intermodal business grew faster last year than the GDP. The country did. If you look at the AAR data intermodal in general grew faster than the economy did last year. So I think what you’re reading in the periodicals is people writing that don’t have anything to write about.
Matt Troy
Right. That is the greatest more than academic observation. Lower fuel surcharges don’t create drivers. I guess my second follow-up question would be, natural gas — if you look at the futures curve it’s implying pretty much $3-ish for the rest of the year or well into the year. Just wondering, I know the Appalachian coal and from a switching perspective has been out of the money for some time, should we just think about the vulnerability in your domestic coal business being Illinois-based and the current levels of $3 and have you triangulated in your guidance a nat gas price assumption in your earlier comments about 1Q flat for the year, just wondering what might be at risk? Because last time we saw gas down here, stockpiles were north of 200 million tons and we’re at a six year low at 130 million tons, so that obviously won’t hurt. Just trying to triangulate what might be vulnerable if we stay at $3? Thanks.
Clarence Gooden
Well, about 47-48% of our coal business today comes out of Northern Ap or the Illinois Basin. So we try to look around $3 or $3.50 natural gas as a number that if you get much under that, we start to hurt a little bit in our burn, so those are the numbers that we triangulate against.
Matt Troy
And Illinois Basin, you aren’t hearing anything about switching from those customers yet?
Clarence Gooden
Well, I’m not sure exactly what you’re asking but what we’re seeing is a lot of our customers are moving to the Illinois Basin in coal which is good for us because it gives us a longer length of haul, give us higher RPU, and it is a good thing for us.
